Mobile communication devices, such as cellular telephones, typically contain highly sensitive data that is used to authenticate mobile devices and mobile subscribers when the mobile device accesses a communication network. Such information is typically stored in a secure hardware or secure memory. In order to perform testing of integrated circuits in a mobile telephone, it may be necessary to disable security functions in the integrated circuit in order to perform a complete analysis of the integrated circuit with dedicated test software. For example, the test software may need to access production test features in the integrated circuit, which are typically disabled before the device is sold. Examples of secure hardware analysis features include central processing unit (CPU) debug and trace, internal memory read/write, internal scan, and external boot features. Access to secure hardware analysis features represents a major security risk. Therefore, access to such secure hardware analysis features should be granted only after authentication of the user.
Several different authentication mechanisms for mobile terminal platforms have been introduced or suggested. For example, advanced RISC machines (ARM) provide secure debugging access based on public key authentication procedures. The ARM authentication procedure, however, provides only limited access to secure hardware analysis features. Therefore, there is a need for new security measures to protect secure hardware analysis features in production devices that allows the secure hardware analysis features to be re-enabled for hardware testing.